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Doha – Qatar

HE Minister of Transport and Communications Jassim Saif Ahmed Al-Sulaiti today rewarded the winners of the top three positions at the “Qatar Threat Hunters 2018 Competition” which has now closed.

This came at a special event held at the Office of the Minister in the presence of Mr. Eng. Khalid Al-Hashmi, Asst. Undersecretary of Cyber Security at MOTC, and team members of the Qatar Computer Emergency Response Team (Q-CERT).

Mr. Jasem Al-Sadi received the best “Attacker” award, Mr. Ahmed Aziz received the best “Defender” award while Mr. Muath Mushtaha won the best “Responder” award.

In remarks at the event, HE the Minister said; “I am proud to honor these talented young people in the field of cybersecurity. There is no doubt that without hard work, tenacity and learning more about information security they could not have reached this level of skill and won today’s awards.”

MOTC through Q-CERT, he said, “places considerable attention on qualifying more national professionals in the field of cybersecurity. We aim to sharpen their skills, equip them with latest defense and security tools and technologies, and raise the capabilities of the new generations in terms of tracking, detecting and resolving all types of cyber threats and incidents.”

MOTC in mid-July 2018 invited all Qatari talents who have unique skills in the realm of cybersecurity to join the competition.

This national competition, “Qatar Threat Hunters 2018”, is a part of the Arab “Threat Hunter” competition that is organized by ITU-ARCC for the Arab youth to develop their skills and talents in the field. The aim is to qualify and prepare the next generation of cybersecurity professionals and specialists and harness their capabilities for competing regionally and globally.

As the cybersecurity skills gap continues to grow in both the private and public sectors, cybersecurity competitions have been recognized worldwide as an effective method for finding new cybersecurity talents and to foster the development of the required cybersecurity competencies.

The competition revolves around several questions and challenges on cybersecurity domains such as ethical hacking, system exploitation, ICT infrastructure and system protection, computer forensics and malware analysis.

The competition consisted of four phases. In the Registration and Pre-Selection phase, interested participants were invited to join the competition until last August 7.

In the second phase, the National Semi-Finals, which took place in mid-August, a webpage was dedicated for each participating Arab country on the competition’s main website for competitors from inside each country.

The third phase was the National Final Round, which took place in Sept. 2018. In that phase, Q-CERT hosted several qualified contestants, who competed at the Qatar national level. This resulted in the top three winners who were awarded today and who will compete regionally at the level of Arab countries at an event to be held later this month via the portal of the competition where participants from all Arab countries will compete on the first three awards.

Competition winners will be awarded during the Regional Cybersecurity Week 2018 for the Arab Region in Kuwait, October 21-25.